25 March, 2010

Judging Schools in the 21st century

By C. Radhakrishnan

Through out history people made criteria to evaluate and find great schools. Whenever such classification and parameters appear today, I use to think, what skills a great school should impart students and society? Good infrastructure, well crafted yearly plans and programme schedules, systematic maintenance of records, advertisements given in reputed magazines, management brand, polished English speaking students etc - can these be the important criteria to decide and judge good schools in the 21st century? There are many schools in our villages which cater to the needs of our students and impart quality learning without these lavish, western-ape shows. Such schools never come to the picture because they do it as a divine duty in a selfless way. They impart learning in the mother tongue which the child can understand easily and make the child a critical thinker. For creative thinking, understanding the concept is more important than language in which the child thinks or learns. However, how many are ready to accept this basic principle of ‘real learning’?

Globalisation has brought about widespread use of English and all run behind English. Do you ever think the fate of millions of children who are creative, intelligent, critical thinkers, curious and innovative but fail to understand and grasp English? Due to ‘adult ignorance’ these children are forced to learn English and finally they can’t cope - we brand them as ‘under achievers’ or ‘weak scholars’. With this stereotyping we, ‘the educated’ (ignorant of basic learning theories) nail their curiosity and natural instinct to learn. No one in this world can prove with data that all great scientists, mathematicians, administrators, philosophers, men of great artistic talents were with excellent multi-linguistic skills/intelligence. But one fact every one can accept and prove is that they were all excellent learners, observers, critical thinkers and innovators. Thus I argue that the most important criteria to judge a great school must be the skills that a school imparts, considering what the students need, not today, but when they come out of the schools after twelve or fourteen years of education. Schools which can visualise the changes after twelve or fourteen years and design their curriculum to suit the needs of that time can only claim that they are providing quality education.

So, what skills great schools inculcate among learners? The answer is here – skills that students need to live in a ‘global village’ after their education. And I believe these would be the broad academic and life skills needed by our students in the time to come.

Listening: Listen carefully to what a person says, noting tone of voice and body language; respond in a way that shows understanding of what is said.

Note: I advocate any one language skill because with in the next ten years in whatever language we speak or write can be translated in letters and voice (with original modulations) just by a mouse click to any language we wish and most of the communication will take place through information technology. This is one of my personal opinions; you may have your own opinions and counter points. Those who disagree with me can read language skill as English Language skill.

People Skills

Social: show understanding, friendliness, and respect for feelings of others; assert oneself when appropriate; take an interest in what people say and why they think and act as they do.

Leadership: Communicate thoughts and feelings to justify a position; encourage or convince; make positive use of rules or values; demonstrate ability to have others believe in and trust you because of competence and honesty.

Teamwork: Contribute to group with ideas and effort; do own share of work; encourage team members; resolve differences for the benefit of the team; responsibly challenge existing procedures, policies, or authorities.

Cultural Diversity: Work well with people having different ethnic, social, or educational backgrounds; understand the cultural differences of different groups; help the people in these groups make cultural adjustments when necessary.

Personal Qualities

Self-Esteem: Understand how beliefs affect how a person feels and acts; listen and identify irrational or harmful beliefs you may have; and understand how to change them when they occur.

Visualisation: Imagine building, object or system by looking at a blueprint or drawing.

Self-renewal Skills

Physical Renewal:

Yoga, workouts, morning walk or jogging is useful to reduce muscle tension and physical stress. This is particularly important to keep us in good health.

Mental Renewal:

Practice meditation, solitude, reading, listening to music and sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings with trusted friends.It helps to improve life and feel better about our self as it helps us recondition our mind to think of our self.

Emotional Renewal:

There are five senses that control our emotions - sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Exercise, healthy diet, getting plenty of sleep, connecting with family and friends, and asking for help, finding time for laughter and hobbies, setting boundaries with others in respect to your time, writing your thoughts and feelings, and drawing or painting your feelings and joining a social service group can renew our emotion. Remember, motion is the precursor of emotion. So train students for proper motions in life, then right emotions will follow.

Spiritual Renewal:

The highest calling of a human being, I believe, is spiritual renewal/development.Habit of reading scriptures, chanting mantras, visiting religious places, service to the needy and meditation techniques can help a lot in spiritual renewal. A spiritual person can only cope with the present hyper-tensed world.

Let us hope educators and policy makers would understand and appreciate these basic skills. It’s high time for us to rethink, reset and implement a curriculum that helps in imbibing these skills that are vital for the future generation to thrive. However, mere change of curriculum won’t deliver the desired result. A curriculum blended with life skills and a dedicated educators’ community can only bring about this paradigm shift. I firmly believe schools that understand and accept this paradigm shift can only survive and flourish in this century. Such schools can only convert learning into an enjoyable and life long experience. Such schools can only claim ‘they are the best’.